Brisbane has a new lolly. It’s a brown snake. A a chewy cola python.

Kudos to the B105 Brekky radio team (Stav, Abby and Matt) who managed to convince Allen’s confectionery company to make a limited edition Brissy Brown Snake. Only 10 packets have been manufactured according to Stav who told me that he got to visit the lolly factory to see how the snakes are made. Sssss…

That sweet chat with Stav reminded me of a factory visit I made as a kid. I grew up at Bushland Beach on the north side of Townsville. There was bush (and snakes) and beach (and stingers) but there wasn’t much else. My primary school at Bohlevale choose a unique first excursion for us. The Coca-Cola factory.

I remember it so vividly as someone who grew up in a house that rarely had a soft drink in the fridge, the big red factory stood out like Santa’s southern hemisphere workshop. I imagined it to be full of sugar and bubbles. A liquid warehouse for Willy Wonka.

My grade one class was fizzing when we piled onto a bus that rolled up to the front door where we were ushered in to watch bottles and cans zip around the factory floor. I’m pretty sure we all had oversized hair nets and tiny hi-vis vests. We walked around wide-eyed and on our best behaviour knowing that a treat might be coming.

The big finale of our factory tour was a free drink. Oh the anticipation, the absolute luxury of a school morning soft drink. I waited patiently as red cans were put into our little hands (it was the eighties – it’d never happen today).

But… confusingly I was given a pink can… creaming soda. I’m yet to experience a drink so disappointing. So devastating. My tongue is curling at the memory of the sour vanilla taste.

Don’t argue with me – it’s not a good drink. It belongs in the bin with sarsaparilla and black jellybeans.

I was telling my workmates about the great coke-choke of my childhood and they confessed they’d had similarly life changing school excursions.

Elle went to Woolworths. She thoroughly enjoyed the fruit and veg section and a roam through the aisles until the children were ushered out to see the back of house butcher. Elle is now vegan.

Meanwhile my colleague Bryce was packed up and sent to the Pizza Hut for his trip. Sauce, toppings and a love affair with cooking began.

A career in pizza is nothing to be sniffed at. Last Friday I found myself seated at a lunch with the CEO of Domino’s Pizza. Don Meij started out as a delivery driver and now rules the pizza world.

I was interviewing Don as part of a panel at the Qld Community Foundation Philanthropy awards alongside Terri Irwin who shocked everyone by wearing purple rather than traditional Australia Zoo khaki. She looked amazing.

The third panellist was Jonathan Thurston who also reminded me of my school trip since he’s now the king of Townsville and we both ordered a coke to drink with lunch. Seems I’m still quenching my childhood thirst.

It’s funny how the tiny moments in life shape you. Terri talked about a duck her dad encouraged her to care for as an early experience that taught her how kindness to animals was deeply fulfilling.

JT recalled his parents selling raffle tickets so that he could play footy and now he helps give Indigenous children opportunities through his charity the Jonathan Thurston Academy.

Don recognised the power of pizza in times of disaster and these days you’ll find his team donating dough to communities in fires and floods.

The line between generosity and philanthropy is blurry… but small acts of kindness can have big consequences.

Towards the end of our panel chat, a group of students from Brisbane Central State School popped up on stage to make a surprise donation to Orange Sky Australia and they’d also raised $1500 to donate to JT. I’ve seen him get emotional on the footy field but his tears took all of us by surprise.

Maybe it was the combination of the company, the cola and the kindness. But I suddenly remembered something I’d recently discovered and read it out as a way of wrapping up the lunch panel with Terri, Don and JT.

A poem by Danusha Lameris…

Small Kindnesses
I’ve been thinking about the way, when you walk
down a crowded aisle, people pull in their legs
to let you by. Or how strangers still say “bless you”
when someone sneezes, a leftover
from the Bubonic plague. “Don’t die,” we are saying.
And sometimes, when you spill lemons
from your grocery bag, someone else will help you
pick them up. Mostly, we don’t want to harm each other.
We want to be handed our cup of coffee hot,
and to say thank you to the person handing it. To smile
at them and for them to smile back. For the waitress
to call us honey when she sets down the bowl of clam chowder,
and for the driver in the red pick-up truck to let us pass.
We have so little of each other, now. So far
from tribe and fire. Only these brief moments of exchange.
What if they are the true dwelling of the holy, these
fleeting temples we make together when we say, “Here,
have my seat,” “Go ahead — you first,” “I like your hat.”